Thursday, November 4, 2010

For your consideration

I would like to cover 2 more points before my announcement as I feel we still have some confusion surrounding both. The first point is do we consider chess a hobby or a professional sport?

It seems to me that it is unfair to expect medals from our players if we still consider chess as a hobby. Look at our competition. What resources do they have? What are we up against? There was some clamor when we launched the Asean initiative with accusations of us making money. As it happened we didnt but would it have been bad if we did? Think on this. What will we need if we are to give our players the same sort of support as our competitors? Will we need to be professionals too?

Competition. What does it mean? Can we look at competition as a challenge of ideas? If we do what will it look like? And look at what we have now.

Would it be an exaggeration if I say that in Malaysian chess we have horned one skill set well? We are near mastery (around IM level) in subterfuge, misdirection, back stabbing, lying, sabotage etc. Where has this skill brought us? And who are we using this skill against? Look at the trajectory of our players to see the result of the application of these skills. What happens as they get older? Do we see them getting stronger as they mature or do we see them getting beaten down? Do they becomes more angry and bitter? Do they reach the stage where they cannot even learn anymore? Look at the blogs with the pseudonyms. They say they are senior players. Look at them, they are so scared they dont even dare to use their names. They attack from the dark. Would you be surprised if it is revealed that they dont even know how to play good chess? You can say anything when you dont reveal yourself. If I was to tell you, play chess in Malaysia and you will end up just like them, would you still stay in the game? Would you want to grow up to be just like them?

Ilham and Abdooss brought up a point. Win-win. Can we have win-win in competition? What happens if we do and what will it look like? We are only out to get better ideas. And so the needed skill sets are planning, development, synergy and nurturing. We have healthy competition so our best have the right support. With right support they have success and they come back not beaten down but with energy. They grow and then they return the support to the next generation. The sponsors are happy and we are creating, adding value as we move along.

Why do you think we have only developed one set of skills and have none in the other? Is the other skill set important too? Have we got it all wrong? What does 30 years of evidence show us?